On Saturday, Len and I decided to head out to Block Island (KBID) for breakfast on what dawned as an absolutely gorgeous fall weekend, with crisp air, sunny skies and a gentle breeze. We preflighted the airplane and I got our clearance to taxi to runway 6 for our eastward departure. The run-up went smoothly with Len reading me the checklist. Then it was lights, camera, action and we were lifting off.
As soon as I pulled the gear up, the amp indicator was flickering a bit and Len saw the EDM (engine monitor the displays oil temps, cylinder temps, battery usage, etc.) shut down and automatically restart. As we continued our climb, the amp indicator and the EDM continued their mysterious behavior. The EDM finished its reset process and then did it all over again.
By now, we were almost to our cruise altitude of 2,500 feet. Len commented that he didn’t like the EDM recycling and I noted I didn’t like the amp gauge looking like it was a very fast ping pong ball, so we banked right and called back to Bridgeport that we were coming back for landing. I explained that we were having electrical issues and the tower immediately cleared us to land, directing another airplane in the pattern to start doing left traffic (counterclockwise).
The tower asked if we were declaring an emergency and I said no that we were just making a precautious landing. I had meant to say that we were just being cautious and making a precautionary landing, but it came out precautious. Len looked over at me with a raised eyebrow and said “precautious?” I laughed and said I think I’d just invented a word.
As we descended back to pattern altitude, I dropped the gear to slow us down. Suddenly, all the electrial issues vanished—the EDM was behaving itself and the amp indicator was perfectly still. The rest of the approach and landing went smoothly (albeit a little low on final approach—the PAPI lights were out of service—so I kept a little extra power in to maintain altitude). Touchdown was smooth and the rollout fine except for a bit of shimmying.
As we taxiied back to the ramp, we tried to deduce what might be wrong—maybe something connected to the gear pump/drive motor?
Alas, breakfast turned out to be a local diner, but better safe than sorry.
And unfortunately, it turns out that precautious is already in the dictionary as an adjective—using or displaying precaution. So as Len noted, I couldn't even get credit for that!
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